and their hospitality.  It was a frank and cordial hospitality, of which the genial old bishop would have approved.  The viands were homely almost to affectation.  Every day saw on that board a noble joint of boiled beef, not to the exclusion of lighter kickshaws; but the beef was indispensable, just as the bouilli still is in some provinces of France.  Claret was there in plenty—­too plentiful perhaps; but surely the “braw drink” was well bestowed, for with it came the droll story, the playful attack and ready retort, the cheerful laugh—­always good humour.  A dinner at Crathes was what the then baronet, old Sir Robert, would call the “best of good company.”

Another part of the house I well remember—­the place, half gun-room, half servant’s hall—­where we prepared for sport in the morning, and brought the day’s bag home at night.  Prominent figures there were two brothers Stevenson, Willie and Jamie, known for twenty miles round as the “fox-hunters,” known to us, after the southern sporting slang had been brought among us by our neighbour Captain Barclay, as “Pad-the-hoof” and “Flash-the-muzzle[7]” The fox-hunting was on foot, but let no mounted hunter sneer.  The haunts of the game were continuous woods and bogs, hard to ride and from which no fox could be forced to break.  “Pad-the-hoof” looked no ignoble sportsman as he cheered his great slow-hounds through the thicket, and his halloo rang from the wood of Trustach to the craigs of Ashintillie.  Both were armed, but “Flash” took less charge of the hounds than seeing to death the fox, the enemy of all, including the roe, which recent plantations had raised into an enemy.  I must say nothing on foot or wing came amiss to Flash-the-muzzle’s gun.  Hares and rabbits, not then the pest of the country, swelled our bag.  We had a moderate number of black game, and the fox-hunters were somewhat astonished to find that we of the gentry set much store by woodcock, which bulked so little in the day’s sport.  The fox-hunter brothers had the run of the servants’ hall at Crathes, and they were said to have consumed fabulous numbers of kitchen pokers, which required to be heated red-hot to give the jugs of ale of their evening draught the right temperature and flavour.  That was a free-living community.  The gentlemen of the house were too much gentlemen to stand upon their dignity, and all, from the baronet downwards, had the thorough appreciation of Deeside humour.  It was there that the Dean learned his stories of “Boatie” and other worthies of the river-side.  Boatie himself was Abernethy, the ferryman of Dee below Blackhall; he hauled his boat across the river by a rope made fast at both ends.  Once, in a heavy water, the rope gave way, and Boatie in his little craft was whirled down the raging river and got ashore with much difficulty.  It was after this, when boasting of his valiant exertions, that Mrs. Russell put him in mind of the gratitude he owed to Providence for his escape, and was answered as the Dean himself